ATTA KENARE
Iranian moderates on Monday won a majority in parliament and in the body that selects the Islamic Republic’s next supreme leader. President Hassan Rouhani, in addition to his moderate conservative allie,s won 15 out of the capital’s 16 seats on the clerical body. Reformists, who are in favor of a relationship with the West and social freedoms, won at least 85 seats in parliament. Reformists and moderate conservatives now have a reported majority in the 290-seat assembly. Voter turnout was at 62 percent, according to Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, and the election was seen as a major blow to the hardline conservative Islamic establishment. “This election can be a turning point in the history of the Islamic Republic,” said an editorial in reformist newspaper Mardom-Salari, whose managing editor, Mostafa Kavakebian, won a parliamentary seat in Tehran.